Field Notes
OrbStack VMs ship without openssh-server
From the chapter: The cluster that almost wasn't
An SSH connection failure in the lab started with a missing service, not a bad key.
Spun up two Ubuntu 22.04 VMs in OrbStack for a Kubernetes lab. Ansible couldn't reach them — and the reason wasn't keys or firewalls: the images ship without openssh-server entirely. No listener, no connection, regardless of authorized_keys.
Fix:
bash
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y openssh-server
sudo systemctl enable --now sshLesson: verify the service exists before debugging its authentication.
Discussion
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